The tale of Burnel the donkey seeking a longer tail is set with subtle double-talk. Its opening fairy-tale simplicity of “once upon a time” immediately leads to undercutting sophistication:

It happened once an ass with ears immense
desired to have a tail in size to match.
Since with his head his tail could not compare,
he deeply groaned about its brevity.
‘Twas not because it failed to suit his needs;
instead, because it was so very short.
The doctors he consulted, with the thought
that they might work what nature could not do.

With his big ears, big head, and anxiety about his tail’s shortness, Burnel alludes to the celibate medieval scholar dedicating his life to the wisdom of Athena. His tail doesn’t fail to suit his needs, for he has no need of it.[2] Yet he laments his organ’s perpetual shortness. Nature, understood to encompass a beautiful other, could make his tail grow longer. The foolish, narrow-minded scholar doesn’t understand. He consults doctors.

You must not scorn the gifts of nature, but
regard among your riches what she gives.
Believe me, that old tail upon your rump
is better than a brand-new tail would be.
Yet this annoys — you want a better tail;
you’ll get a worse one through the surgeon’s skills.
A new tail could not easily be grown,
not even if the old could be removed.

Physicians often fail and are deceived,
and things that harm are, vice versa, good.
Though he hold strictly to what art requires,
still things will not turn out as he may wish.
For God alone is healer of the sick;
it’s ours to wish, but his the power to do.
Without his help and guidance we are nought,
but he can do all things without our help.
Herbs, medicines, and sundry drugs we use,
but he by word alone makes all things well.
The people call us doctors, just in name;
but God is doctor both in name and deed.
Be sure to keep the tail he gave to you,
and seek not, fool, for anything besides.

Galen then told Burnel a pseudo-realistic beast fable about two female cows. When Galen was a child, his father had on his farm two sister cows — Brownie, a black-haired cow, and Two-Horns, an auburn-haired cow.[4] One winter night, both cows lay down in a muddy pasture to sleep. The next morning they found their tails frozen to the ground. They couldn’t get up to journey home.

Two-Horns argued for cutting off their tails to get free and go home. She was worried about her calf, not yet five days old, back at home. She reasoned:

Why have a tail, or what’s it ever brought me?
What good or honor does a tail bestow?
Behold, I’m kept a captive by it! Why?
No honor but a burden is my tail.
Suppose with tail intact I could escape,
a muddy tail will ever weigh me down.
A dangling tail’s a burden and holds mud;
what can I see it bringing me but woe?

Many unhappy women reason similarly about their boyfriends or husbands. Two-Horns took a knife and cut off her tail. She then gave the blade to Brownie. She urged her to cut herself free. A woman without a man strives to have her sisters be like her.

Brownie refused to follow the devilish advice of her sister Two-Horns. Brownie exclaimed:

No way that I should do what you advise!
When things go wrong there’s need for self-control;
you must not be too fast in time of grief.
…
A sweet relationship makes friendly ties;
ties made with me are very strong indeed.
What one unblessed by fortune fails to have,
another from his richer store may satisfy.
No creature is so excellent or grand
that it can do without another’s help.
The changing times with varied risks contend,
nor are all partnerships on equal terms.

Although my tail remains my hindmost part,
yet I deem nothing of more use to me
…
My tail’s a shield to me, a sword, and axe,
a lance, sling, rock, and club, an arrow, torch.
The tail provides my skin a faithful nurse,
and brushes off the dust that clings to it.
It washes, cleanses, and alone serves all
the members, being last, in service first.
If we note well what glory and what use
each member to its lady has served,
then it alone is worth more to its head
than other members; more busy too than they.

The Latin word for “member” (membrum), like the Latin word for “tail” (cauda), can also refer to a man’s penis.[6] The above appreciation for the member that best serves its lady leads immediately to more direct sexual imagery:

It alone prevents discerning the weak sex
openly in public; the tail covers the vagina.
These {personal tools} my tail unites at various times,
yet at certain times it pleases more.

The Latin word for vagina (pudendus) is linguistically rooted in “that which is a source of shame.” In prophecy of Isaiah about the ravaging of Jerusalem, unmarried women begged ordinary men to marry them so as to take away their shame. That’s the shame of a vagina without a tail. The central thrust of the passage isn’t obscure. For many persons other than those mired in rape-culture culture, a man pleases more at those certain times when he’s united with a woman. Appreciation for the tail “being last, in service first” draws upon both the Christian ideal of servant-leadership and the servant-leadership of a husband within the traditional understanding of chivalry.[8]

Like other desires, sexual desire can be disordered. Flies, especially fleas, biting a girl insistently and beyond any limits of clothing or resistance figures disordered masculine sexual desire. The twelfth-century Latin poem The Flea {De pulice} is an example of that sexual imagery. Consistent with the elaborate literary structure of the Mirror of Fools, Galen’s fable of the two sister cows confronts the masculine sexual imagery of biting flies with the masculine sexuality imagery of a comforting tail. That confrontation occurs in different feminine encompassing environments. One is summer’s raging heat like a women burning with excessive sexual desire. Another is beauty and fertility that inevitably incites sexual activity:

In the meantime the fruitful summer had come
to decorate the fields with early flowers.
It now had clothed the trees with leaves, the earth
with grass, and fashioned flowers with equal skill.
Birds freed from winter’s prison had escaped
to pay due tribute to the neighborhood.
The nightingale, to compensate her loss
of speech, fills all the woods with lovely song.
The swallow and the turtledove appear
at nature’s summons, each at time ordained.
The lark, dawn’s harbinger, comes with the thrush,
nor do they change the schedule of their lives.
The cuckoo with his repetitious song
declares the springtime, as he always does.
A blend of disharmonious sounds is heard,
and through the woods a thousand organs play.
The scent of flowers excels the songs of birds,
their songs excel the pipes; the flowers, sweet balm.
The wood resounds, the fields are sweet with thyme,
the flowers and fruits a spicy fragrance yield.

The Song of Songs is similarly filled with gardens, fruits, and spices. In the Mirror of Fools, both the summer’s raging heat and this spring-like environment breeds flies and wasps. They passionately and hurtfully attack Brownie and Two-Horns. Brownie, who always has her tail with her, deflects the attacks. But the manless, tailless Two-Horns succumbs to them. She dies as an example for those who would disregard limits and enter into castration culture or inordinate sexual activity.[9]

Men who don’t appreciate their short penises are easy prey for mercenary doctors. Burnel didn’t understand Galen’s fable about the two sister cows. Burnel rejected Galen’s advice to accept the natural goodness of his tail. To satisfy Burnel, Galen then adopted the practices of a mercenary doctor. He advised Burnel:

Your tail from there can reach a proper length,
provided it keep contact with flesh.
But in the case of treatments and their costs,
it’s quite important that you have much means.
Strong remedies require a bulging purse,
large wounds demand much wealth and capital.
…
If then you do not fail to pay the bills,
I shall not fail to give you special care.
If you keep up the payments, I shall try
my skill, provided I still have my strength. [10]

a small amount of milk of goose and kite,
a little flash of light and fear of wolf,
a dram of seven-year truce ‘twixt dog and hare,
the kisses which a lark has sent her hawk,
a pound of special peacock’s sweet refrain,
before however he has grown a tail

With a subtle allusion to a donkey’s large penis, Galen urged the donkey Burnel to give himself a fifth foot to make the trip to Salerno quickly. When Burnel asked Galen for a blessing, Galen, speaking in what was Greek to the donkey, petitioned God to bring him a thousand woes.

Treatments for “erectile dysfunction” have become a big business. Those treatments assume that a man’s penis isn’t functioning properly. Yet the fundamental cause of men’s penises remaining short is cultural hostility to men’s sexuality. Men’s penises typically remain short because they lack encounters with young, beautiful, warmly receptive women, or at least a woman lovingly remembered as being among such. The “erectile dysfunction” business caters to fools.[11]

[1] Nigel, Mirror of Fools {Speculum stultorum} 81-8, Latin text from Mozley & Raymo (1960) p. 32, English translation from Regenos (1959) p. 12, both with my adaptations. Regenos uses the name Brunellus for the donkey. The Latin text has Burnellus. See, e.g. ll. 595, 791, and comment in Mozley & Raymo (1960) pp. 148-9. I use the English form Burnel. That’s also the form that Chaucer used in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale (ll. 3312-16) of the Canterbury Tales.

Wright’s Latin text of Speculum stultorum is freely available online. Wright (1872) pp. 11-145. Regenos’s translation is based on that text, but incorporates corrections to that text from the subsequent scholarly literature. Regenos commented:

although Wright’s edition leaves much to be desired, it can be said with some degree of assurance, I think, that this translation is based on a reasonably sound text.

Regenos (1959) p. 20. To the best of my ability, I’ve checked Regenos translation against the Latin text of Mozley & Raymo (1960) and made any necessary corrections. Since I’ve supplied the relevant Latin text from the latter above, others can similarly verify the translations.

The Latin text consists largely of elegiac couplets that form a single, complete sentence. Regenos’s translation closely follows the lines of the Latin text. Readers who haven’t studied Latin can thus easily and beneficially compared the English to the Latin. To make both the English translation and the corresponding Latin text more accessible to such readers, I’ve used standard English sentence capitalization, and I’ve both capitalized and punctuated the English and Latin texts in parallel to the extent sensibly feasible. Where I’ve made a substantial change to the words of Regenos’s translation, I’ve noted the change at the end of the Latin text of the quotation.

it has been my constant aim to render as faithfully as possible the full meaning of the original text, and certainly not to take undue liberties. Sometimes it has been most difficult to compress within the limits of two iambic pentameters the complete thought of a couplet, but patient endeavor has usually, if not always, made it possible.

Speculum stultorum is sadly under-appreciated today. In the relatively liberal, tolerant, and enlightened time of the European Middle Ages, Speculum stultorum “enjoyed great success … {it} circulated especially widely from the end of the fourteenth century through the Reformation.” Ziolkowski (1994) p. 2. See also Mozley & Ramo (1960) pp. 8-9. A leading scholar of medieval Latin literature judged Speculum stultorum to be the finest example of twelfth-century European satire. Pepin (1988) p. 119. For a review of the contents of Speculum stultorum, id. Ch. 5.

Speculum stultorum was written at Canterbury, England, late in the twelfth century. It survives in forty manuscripts, with thirty-four containing complete or nearly complete texts. Id. pp. 9-15, Mann (2007) p. 5.The specific date of composition is a matter of some scholarly controversy. According to Ziolkowski, “most of it was written around 1179-80, but one section (perhaps a later revision by Nigel himself) is believed to date from 1185-87.” Ziolkowski (1994) p. 2. According to Mann, Speculum stultorum was written “some time in the 1190s.” Mann (2007) p. 34.

The author of the Speculum stultorum is variously specified in English as Nigellus Wireker, Nigel Whiteacre, Nigel of Langchamp (also Nigel Longchamp and Nigel de Longchamps), and Nigel of Canterbury. On the basis for these different names, Ziolkowski (1994) pp. 7-9, Mann (2009) pp. 99-100. In the references below, I use the WorldCat uniform author identifier Nigellus Wireker. Elsewhere I refer to the author as only Nigel.

Born about 1140, Nigel was a highly learned Benedictine monk living in the monastic community at Christ Church, Canterbury, in England. Nigel also wrote Miracles of the Holy Virgin Mother of God Mary, in verse {Miracula Sancte Dei genetricis uirginis Marie, uersifice}. That lengthy work consists of 2690 lines of elegiac distichs covering seventeen miracles. It is “the earliest surviving collection of versified Marian miracles in Latin.” Ziolkowsk (1994) p. 4. Nigel also wrote, in 2345 lines of dactylic, end-rhymed hexameters, The Passion of Saint Lawrence the Martyr {Passio Sancti Laurentii martiris}. For a brief review of all Nigel’s works, id. pp. 3-5.

Subsequent quotes above from Speculum stultorum are constructed in the same way as the first. The citations for the subsequent quotes, by line number for the Latin text in Mozley & Raymo (1960) and by page for the English translation in Regenos (1959): ll. 95-102, pp. 32-3 (You must not scorn…); .. 117-30, p. 33 (Physicians often fail…); ll. 171-2, 186, p. 35 (All men can talk…); ll. 243-50, pp. 37-8 (Why have a tail…); ll. 284-6, 345-52 (No way that I should do…); ll. 367-8, 375-84 (Athough my tail remains…); ll. 385-8, p. 42 (It alone prevents…); ll. 503-22, p. 47 (In the meantime the fruitful summer…); ll. 609-14, 623-6, pp. 50-1 (Your tail from there…); ll. 645-50, p. 52 (a small amount of milk…).

[2] As a highly learned monk, Nigel undoubtedly understood well devotion to Athena rather than to Venus. He wrote on the flyleaf of his manuscript of Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica:

As studious Nigel applied himself and avoided times of idleness,
he embroidered from various sources the writings of the present little book,
which he wished to survive him after death as the future of
his name and the undying memorial of his worthiness.

[4] In the Latin, Brownie has the name Brunetta. Two-Horns has the name Bicornis. Both Regenos (1959) and Mosley (1963) use the names Brunetta and Bicornis in their translations. However, both Latin names have clear English translations with meanings relevant in particular contexts of the Speculum stultorum. Thus I’ve used translated versions of the names above.

[5] Maximian’s elegies, with their beautiful commendation for a sexually functioning penis, became part of the medieval school curriculum in the eleventh century. Hunt (1991) vol. 1, p. 68. That outstanding education undoubtedly helped to inspire men to develop the vigorous culture of learning and literature that characterized twelfth-century Europe.

With lack of appreciation for Speculum stultorum’s citations of Maximian’s elegies and Speculum stultorum’s over-all figurative strategy in relation to penises, Brownie’s encomium has been badly contextually and misinterpreted. Mann stated:

Brunetta {Brownie} then launched into a full-scale encomium of her tail, headed Commendatio Caudae, which obviously has it source in rhetorical school-exercises in praise of base or banally ridiculous objects.

it is not this large field of the laudatio as a whole that I shall here plough over, but rather a curiously miscultivated portion of it to which the term “adoxography” has been given, in which the legitimate methods of the encomium are applied to persons or objects in themselves obviously unworthy of praise, as being trivial, ugly, useless, ridiculous, dangerous, or vicious.

On member {membrum} meaning a man’s penis or a woman’s vagina, e.g. Ovid, Amores 2.15.25: te nuda mea membra libidine surgent , translated as “my loving member to rise erect,” and De pulice 13: Ausus es interdum per membra libidinis ire , translated as “Sometimes you even dare to go through her loving member.” On these lines and their translations, see notes [2] and [3] in my post on De pulice.

Speculum stultorum 577-8 (adapted to translate exemplum consistently and be more precise; for the second line of the couplet Regenos has “Will teach them all the need for self-control”). Nigel had great respect for women’s sensual allure. He had Burnel observe of an order of nuns:

Beneath black skirts they hide their lovely legs.
No girdles do they wear, nor underwear
in former times — if now, I do not know.

Latin text from Ziolkowski (1994) p. 289. Nigel also copied a version of On the Twelve Abuses of the World {De duodecim abusivis saeculi} that included the abuse “a woman with no respect {for modesty} is like a wild mind” {Assimilata feris mens nulla uerens mulieris}. Latin text from id. p. 294. Yet Nigel also provided a figure of the natural goodness of men’s sexuality:

Between the legs of the betrothed, in the dwelling of the father, and in the belly of the mother,
a man lays down for father, for betrothed, for mother.

At a more literal level, Galen is acting as a greedy doctor. Nigel denounced love of money and greed:

let money and a packed purse be far from a monk.

{ ergo sit a monacho procul es et bursa referta. }

Nigel, Epigrams 8.10, Latin text and English trans. from Ziolkowski (1994) pp. 258-9. Nigel also was deeply engaged in the struggle of the monks of Christ Church Canterbury to continue their practice of disbursing money on causes they choose as worthy rather than financially supporting the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King of England. Id. pp. 21-22, 25-30, 41-2; Mann (2009) pp. 144-7.

[11] Mann argued that Two-Horns’s choice to cut off her tail “is dictated by her natural urge to reunite herself with her calf,” while Burnel’s choice to seek a longer tail “is dictated by his asinine nature.” Mann (2009) p. 128. That’s a misleading distinction. Both Two-Horns and Burnel are contingently foolish in lacking respect for their natural tails. At the higher figurative level of the Speculum stultorum, females’ natural desire for calves naturally prompts them to appreciate penises, while males’ natural response to such females lengthens their penises.